Transplant tourism is one of those dangerous businesses that proliferate in many developing-world countries. The intersection of rich foreigner frantic for a kidney, cornea or liver and poor local desperate to make money has spawned an illicit organ-trafficking industry, from India to Brazil. China, which is the subject of a new article …
Business
The Google-China Spat Heats Up as Beijing Denies Hacking Attacks
Google and China aren’t exactly pals. The Internet company pulled part of its business out of mainland China last year, saying it was fed up with Beijing-imposed censorship regulations and what it believes were Chinese-originated attacks on its systems. (The fact that Google was lagging behind domestic search engines might have been a …
Calling China? Corruption Taints the Lucrative Telecoms Business.
Another day, another corruption scandal. So goes life in China, where tales of official graft are so common that a newspaper wouldn’t be complete without a rundown of the sordid details. But even by Chinese standards, this one looks like a doozey. According to state media—and by the time it appears in the official press, chances are …
Woes Continue in China for an Apple Parts Manufacturer
Apple products are so popular in China that a riot broke out in early May when the new iPad 2 was first sold in a Beijing store. But Foxconn, one of its biggest parts manufacturers operating in China, has suffered a far more turbulent year. In the latest of the Taiwan-run company’s ongoing labor woes, three workers were killed and 15 …
Could the Chinese Profit from the Strauss-Kahn Scandal?
As jailed Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn submitted his resignation as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China quickly positioned itself as a possible beneficiary. On Thursday, Chinese state media wondered aloud whether the next IMF leader should be Chinese. One candidate bandied about by the official Chinese …
To Be Young, Rich, Chinese — and Hated
Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic reforms, is reported to have exclaimed: “To get rich is glorious.” But an annual report naming China’s richest people has in recent years been noteworthy more for the strenuous effort tycoons and property magnates seem to make to ensure their names don’t appear on the list. As …
Poor Panama. China’s Just Not That Into You.
The list of countries that have chosen diplomatic relations with Taiwan over mainland China reads like an exercise in national obscurity. The 23-nation compendium includes Burkina Faso, Tuvalu and Saint Kitts and Nevis, along with Palau, Swaziland and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Nevertheless, the People’s Republic has assiduously …
A Game of Two Halves: Can Soccer’s Governing Body FIFA Finally Clean Up Its Act?
Where were we when we last discussed the soap opera that is soccer’s governing body (and veritable global behemoth), FIFA? Ah yes, President Sepp Blatter — who, given the power of his position and the popularity of the sport, is arguably as influential as the Pope — claimed he was going to clean up the sport for good if re-elected on …
Have Foreigners Unwittingly Adopted Victims of Baby-Selling in China?
In recent years, one of China’s most beloved exports has been babies adopted by overseas individuals eager to complete their families and help needy children. Now an investigation by respected Chinese magazine Caixin has uncovered evidence of Chinese family-planning officials taking children from local couples who supposedly had …
Tightening the Leash on China’s Internet—And a Bubbly Chinese Tech IPO
May 4 is known in Chinese history as the day in 1919 when university students in Beijing began nationalist protests that eventually led to an intellectual movement championing, among other things, democratic reform. So it was rather ironic that Chinese officials chose that day in 2011 to announce the creation of a new agency called the …
What’s The One Thing Not Growing Fast In China? Its Population.
China, as we all know, is a rapidly expanding country. Economic growth is chugging along, the military is adding new high-tech hardware and international luxury brands are opening new stores on a near daily basis. But according to the results of the nation’s sixth census, China isn’t growing quite as dramatically in one key respect: …
Ambassador Loses Fighter-Jet Bid, Takes Marbles, Goes Home
Some big news from New Delhi today on one of the world’s biggest outstanding defense orders: the $10 billion contract to supply 126 fighter jets to the Indian Air Force. After the news broke that both U.S. bids were out of the running, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, resigned.
This morning’s newspapers revealed that the …
Sarkozy To French Companies: Give People Money. That’s An Order.
Barack Obama, don’t try this at home (as if…):
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to fulfill his 2007 campaign promise to boost long-stagnant household purchasing power—easily the biggest plank in a wider election platform that has, also, mostly come to naught. So, four years on, monumentally unpopular, and up for …